The Snowy River Campus, School for Student Leadership

School for Student Leadership is a Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development initiative offering a unique residential education experience for year nine students. The curriculum focuses on personal development and team learning projects sourced from students' home regions. There are three campuses in iconic locations across Victoria. The Alpine School Campus is located at Dinner Plain in the Victorian Alps. Snowy River Campus is near the mouth of the Snowy River at Marlo in east Gippsland. The third site is adjacent to Mount Noorat near Camperdown in Victoria’s Western District, and is called Gnurad-Gundidj. After consultation with the local aboriginal community, this name represents both the indigenous name of the local area and an interpretation of the statement "belonging to this place". It opened for students in term 1 2009.

Just recently a group of Snowy River Campus students set out on an overnight expedition. We were each given leadership roles in the group and mine was environmental caretaker. This involved picking up any rubbish we found on the way and leaving no trace at our campsite. I was expecting to find a usual amount of rubbish, but not as much as we did!

An astonishing fact that we found out is used plastic dumped in the sea kills and destroys sea life at an estimated 1,000,000 sea creatures per year. I'm really passionate about the environment so I was really eager to take on my role as environmental caretaker and get everyone involved in picking up rubbish as much as possible.

We took with us on the hike two big bags to put rubbish in and in the end we had to resort to stashing the rubbish in our bags – there was that much! Within the 7km of walking we did on the beach we found: 44 foam trays, 12 plastic bottles, 18 light bulbs and 20 glass bottles.

The School for Student Leadership Snowy River Campus students have one burning question; what's with all the light globes? After completing our expeditions, we have found a grand total of 29 light globes. We have been told that it is now illegal to throw light globes overboard, so why are we finding so many??

Among other items of rubbish we found 17 cleaning product bottles, 30 alcohol bottles, fluorescent light sticks and a few odd thongs. Whilst it is fun to see the strange items on the beach, we should not see them at all. The fishermen and oil rigs that rely on the ocean for their next pay check are also slowly killing it.

If we reduced the rubbish that we throw into the sea, we would be creating a happier, healthier eco-system. So next time you think about throwing that light globe in the ocean or chucking that bottle overboard, think again. Is it really that hard to put it in the bin and save the eco-system that you rely on??

Indigo McKinnon, Year 9 Student, School for Student Leadership, Snowy River Campus.

Throughout term 4, 2013 students from the School for Student Leadership Snowy River Campus have been busy scouring the local beaches and waterways in search for washed up foreign objects. Students adopted a positive attitude towards the cause and worked hard to clean up the local area.

The school has joined forces with Tangaroa Blue's Australian Marine Debris Initiative to work towards collecting debris from the beaches and waterways and collating the data for research purposes. Students take part in two Expeditions over the nine week program, during those expeditions students focused on collecting debris and keeping a record of rubbish collected. The expeditions took place in the Cape Conran Coastal Park and Snowy River Estuary areas. It has been an interesting exercise for the student to see what actually shows up on the beaches and learn about what effect this rubbish has on the environment and underwater creatures. Throughout the term students also took part in a number of community service sessions which allowed the students to explore the Cape Conran area for rubbish.